Nodena village 1400–1650 CE

Artists conception of the Nodena Site at its height

The site was a 15 acres (6ha)palisadedvillage on a horseshoe bend of the Mississippi River about 5 miles (8km) east of Wilson, Arkansas. Archaeological artifacts from the villages of the Nodena people are dated to 1400–1650 CE.

The site had three to eight mounds, two of them large substructure mounds. The largest, designated as "Mound A", was 111 feet (34m) wide by 120 feet (37m) long, and 15.5 feet (5m) high. It had two levels, with the top being 40 feet (12m) by 60 feet (18m), and the terrace level being 30 feet (9m) wide. The remains of three structures were found on the mound, one on the top level and two on the terrace level. The mound designated as "Mound B" was 117 feet (36m) by 111 feet (34m) by 4 feet (1.2m) tall. It had the remains of a 60 feet (18m) diameter round structure found at its summit. The site also had several large plaza areas, and what Dr. Hampson described as a "chunkey field", which was located directly behind Mound A. A circular mound, designated as "Mound C", was located at the other end of the chunkey field. It was roughly 93 feet (28m) in diameter and 3 feet (0.9m) high. A large number of male graves, 314 of 316, were found buried under it.

The houses in the village were laid out in a very orderly fashion, located on the same axis as the mounds at the site, demonstrating that the whole site was planned.[6] Members of the de Soto Entrada described the villages of the Pacaha and Nodena peoples as being the most carefully planned and organized of all the villages they had seen in "La Florida", which was what they called the entire southeast.[7] The villages of this area were described as having few if any trees, probably because this was the primary source of fuel and building materials. Many trees close to the villages would have been cut down for these purposes. Homes were built from wattle and daub, with thatched roofs. The palisade which surrounded the site was designed for defensive purposes. It had bastions at regular intervals, with archer slots to defend against enemy attacks. The peoples of Casqui and Pacaha were in a state of perpetual war with one another, and most large sites throughout the area in this time period had this type of defensive palisade.

The de Soto chroniclers indicate that political provinces characterized by a paramount chief living in a paramount town with satellite vassal towns surrounding it were the major political institutions of this area. The Nodena site was either the main town or one of the larger satellite towns of the Pacaha province.

Pottery

Most pottery found at the Nodena Site is of the kind known as Mississippian Bell Plain. It was buff colored, contains large fragments of ground mussel shell as a tempering agent, and isn't as smooth and polished as other varieties. Other kinds found there are much finer, with a finer ground shell as a temper, some instances being so finely ground as to look untempered. The Nodena Phase people put a bowl and a bottle into a grave with the bodies, usually of the finer variety of pottery. Shapes and decoration were varied in the mortuary pottery, from brighly colored abstract spiral designs, to elaborate effigy vessels depicting human heads, animals, and hunters and their prey. Pottery made by the Nodena people was built up from strips of clay, and then smoothed out by the potter, much like other pottery in the Eastern America area where the potters wheel was unknown. Slips using galena for white, hematite for red, and sometimes graphite for black were used to paint the pottery, with a red on white swastika design being particularly popular. Sometimes incising was used (an example is the incised raptor image on the effigy head pot pictured), although it is rare in Nodena pottery.[6]

Head deformation

Painting by artist Paul Kane showing a Chinookans woman with a deformed skull and an infant in a cradle designed to deform the skull

The people of the Nodena phase practiced artificial cranial deformation or head flattening. Shortly after infants were born, they were strapped to a special carrier which deformed their skulls as they grew. Many of the skeletal remains found at the Nodena Site had deformed skulls, of the type defined as fronto-occipital deformation, flattening of the forehead and the back of the head. Of 123 skulls found by Dr. Hampson, only six could be considered "normal", meaning they did not show the signs of head deformation. The functioning of the brain is not affected by cranial deformation, but the overall shape of the skull bones are.[6] This practice was performed by many Native American tribes into historic times, including the Choctaw, although it later fell out of favor.

Agriculture and Food

The people of Nodena were intensely involved in maize agriculture, as well as other food crops originating in the Americas, such as beans, squash, sunflowers and gourds. They also gathered wild foodstuffs such as pecans and persimmons. The de Soto choroniclers described the area as being under heavy cultivation, and the most populous they had seen in La Florida. The Spaniards described groves of wild fruit and nut bearing trees, implying that the Nodena must have left them standing when clearing other trees for the cultivation of maize.[7] The hunting of whitetail deer, squirrel, rabbit, turkey, and mallard was practiced as well as fishing for alligator gar, catfish, drum, and mussels.[6]

Language

The peoples of Nodena were probably Tunican or Siouan speaking. It is known that the Tunica were in the area at the time of the de Soto Entrada, and the related group of phases present in the region may have all been Tunican speakers, with Caddoan speakers to their west and south. But by the time of later European contact in the 1670s and the beginning of the historic period, the area was occupied by the Dhegiha Siouan speaking Quapaw. Attempts have been made to connect pottery styles and words from the de Soto narratives with historic tribes, but have so far been unsuccessful.[9]

↑ Michael P. Hoffman (1990). "The Terminal Mississippian Period in the Arkansas River Valley and Quapaw Ethnogenesis". In David H. Dye and Cheryl Ann Cox. Towns and Temples Along the Mississippi. University of Alabama Press. ISBN0-8173-0455-X.